Current methods for designing contact lenses are typically laborious, time consuming and expensive. They typically involve creating a lens design on a computer using either commercially available or internally developed software. The parameters inputted into the software include prescription information, ocular dimensions, tear film properties and material properties. Lenses of the created design must then be manufactured and then clinically tested to determine how they will fit and move on the patient's eye. If the lenses are found wanting, the whole process must be repeated until acceptable on-eye performance is achieved. This design, build, test cycle is necessary since on-eye performance could not otherwise be predicted. Designing, manufacturing, prescribing and fitting contact lenses can benefit from understanding the dynamics of the eye. How the eye moves, the forces that interact in such movement, and the way lenses are affected by the movement and the forces can be important. For example, devising stabilization schemes for retaining a lens in a location or range of locations on the eye can be enhanced by such an understanding.
It would be even more useful if the forces and interactions relating to an eye and lens would be caste into a model that could demonstrate the effect on proposed designs. That is the subject of the instant invention.